Sex among students: School management to blame

How can students just decide that they are going to transform the school into a virtual harlot house, while the school’s internal authorities display spinelessness? This attitude is not leadership. It’s neither management nor administration. It’s really a kind of mockery of the system.

The extremely troubling matter of sexual activity in schools, involving students, has been receiving heightened attention, as more specific details of the magnitude and severity of the problem surface.

We have had fingers pointing at factors which are supposed to be blamed. Breakdown in family life (as cited by the Minister of Education), television, a general decline in morals and values and other social ills. All these are certainly true. However, there is one of the key cause-factors which appears to be constantly downplayed, for whatever reason. At the heart of this problem of sex in school (and the general massive decline in discipline) may not only be a breakdown in family life but, to a considerable degree, a breakdown in internal school management. We just cannot escape the universal reality: “The quality of the enterprise is reflective of the quality of its leadership”. Leadership and management set the tone for every other component and facet in the organisation. Fundamentally, people — especially children — would conform or adapt, depending on the signals received from leadership. If the deviant behaviour of students begins to negatively alter the standards and culture of a school, or becomes the dominant feature in the operation of that institution, then it’s not essentially a student behaviour problem but a school management problem. Irrespective of how severe these indiscipline problems may be, there must be a place where every responsible school’s leadership asks the question: “Who really is in charge here?” This tail-wagging-dog business just does not work in any serious operation.

The principal and his staff (with whatever resources at their disposal) must lay down their rules, set their standards, refuse to compromise on vital items and insist that followers be followers and leaders be leaders. I know there are many principals and staff who have been working hard at solutions to their problems. Some even feel that their hands are tied for various “technical” reasons which appear to be true. Nevertheless, a firm stand, as I have described, is what primarily makes the difference between schools with controlled disciplinary problems and those with crisis-proportion ones. Take the supposed authorities and expert who say things such as, “Children are having sex in schools, so give them condoms”. Their solution to this extremely serious breach of the school code (sex in school) is not to take an unambiguously firm stand to uphold the rule but to speedily find a way to compromise the standard and accommodate the wrong. (You also have the absurdity of offering the students condoms in schools, and at the same time telling them there must be no sex in school). People with positions like these should be kicked out (as far as possible) from the education system to be remembered no more. Their genius problem-solving skills and expert creativity see it best to allow the lawless to take over the running of the show, while spineless leadership surrenders to the evil, and in principle declares, “If you can’t beat them, then join them”. This is basically the kind of craziness which has led to much of the disciplinary crisis we now face in education. We evidently need a radical pulling up. Even where there is teacher absenteeism and unsupervised classes, it remains a management problem. Family problems or no family problems, television or no television, we are fashioning children to become law-abiding adults in a civilised environment. Therefore, if there is any place that they must learn to respect the rules and standards, it’s in their foremost formal learning environment — the school.

When there are rules and regulations to be observed at the airport, for example, nobody excuses or exonerates anyone for flouting these rules because “his/her behaviour is reflective of a breakdown in family life.” The same applies to traffic laws, drug laws and every other area. Family dysfunction, TV influence or anything else ... you had better conform or else! The same student that behaves as though he is too hyper to sit in class for 40 minutes, and gives the teacher hell, will calmly sit on an eight-hour flight to London and most respectfully obey all the airline’s rules. The reason is that he knows that the airline’s authorities have a zero tolerance policy for any nonsense. This awareness compels the “stubborn and rebellious” child to engage all his self-discipline and self-management skills to make sure that he complies and conforms. How can school children (yes, school children) come to a place of learning and decide that they are going to transform it into a virtual harlot house, having sex at will and even “making fares” among themselves; create a rum shop or drug-pusher’s den out of the classroom, making it impossible for serious children to study, and the administrators’ “most dynamic response” is to throw their hands up in helplessness and allow lawlessness to overrun their institution? This attitude is not leadership. It’s neither management nor administration. It’s really a kind of mockery, and we need to do something speedily about this costly joke.